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We left Salvador early on May 23rd heading for Lencois, 6 hours inland. It would our first adventure away from the sea for a while, so we were pretty excited about the change of scenery. However, the journey there wasn't completely without incident: a passing truck demolished our wing mirror so we had to wait for an hour on the hard shoulder for someone to come and replace it! Later on we passed a lorry crash, the driver hobbling out of the cab waving frantically for help. Fortunately a car going the other way stopped. It seemed the road to Lencois was pretty dangerous.
Lencois is a small town of 9000 inhabitants, formed in 1844 due to the presence of diamonds in the region. It is a quaint colonial town, a pleasant place to walk around; however, we were there because of its proximity to the Chapada Diamantina National Park, 1500 sq km of mountainous wilderness stretching west from the town. On arrival we found our pousada and booked a couple of tours for the next two days. With daylight failing, we quickly went to see the serrado, small pools of water between huge rocks running down the river back
towards the town. While we took photos a local child sat against the rocks doing his homework - we weren't sure how he could concentrate in these wonderful surroundings!
We walked back to town, stopping in small handicraft shops and eating good tapiocas at the main square. It had been a long day so we had an early night in preparation for our hike the following day.
We awoke at 7:15 and had a monster breakfast before being picked up at 8:30 for our tour. We drove for an hour and a half along the death road, the whole time watching through our fingers as lorries overtook other lorries on hills and blind corners. No wonder there's so many accidents - it was crazy!
Once at the village of Capao we parked the car and begun the hike. Ever since we had left the amazon we had been wearing flip-flops so it felt peculiar putting on our hiking shoes again, though it felt good to be doing some proper walking again.
The hike would only be short: 6 km up to the top of the Cachoeira da Fumaca (Smoke Waterfall), the highest in Brazil at 384m.
The first 2 km were steep uphill with great views of the valleys, hills and tiny villages of the region. When the trail flattened out much of the walk was spent negotiating huge puddles - some were too big to be classed as 'puddles', and we had to take our shoes off to wade through!
After 2 hours we reached the top of the Smoke Waterfall, so called because much of the water is blown back upwards by the wind, thus creating a 'smoke' effect. A small overhanging rock provided the perfect view to the small pool at the bottom of the falls - it felt very high up, but we couldn't help but look over the edge at the majesty of the giant waterfall. Although there was no sun it was still quite a sight - and a nice place to have lunch!
We walked back down the same way, the highlight of which was seeing an angry rattlesnake curled up on the path, it's tail shaking violently. Our guide scared it off with a stick and we followed it down the path until it disappeared amongst the trees. It was pretty thrilling to be walking on
a trail and suddenly find ourselves alongside such an impressive creature.
When we returned to the car we drove to another (much smaller) waterfall, enjoying the sight before heading back to Lencois, ready for a relaxing evening.
The next day we were collected after another big breakfast, ready for a full day's exploring without quite so much walking! Our first stop was at a beautiful waterfall - the view from the top showed a narrow creek leading away from the pool at the bottom. The river was the colour of coca-cola due to the high levels of organic material, and the earthy brown of the river suited the otherwise green surroundings. Carina just had to swim in the pool - even though it was freezing!
Once she'd dried off we then drove to see a different feature of Chapada Diamantina: the caves. There are hundreds of caves in the national park, so it seemed right to explore a few. The first, Grula do lapa Doce, was 850 metres long and big enough to fly a plane through. Huge rock formations rose and descended around us, forming imaginative shapes and producing a fine white colour.
When we
Scenery on the hike
We didn't have the best of weather, but at least the rain stayed away! reached daylight we drove to the Pratinha caves, where it is possible to go snorkelling; we decided against it, instead choosing to relax by the lake next to the cave and paddle amongst the tiny fish. The water was crystal clear, so we able to clearly see the millions of tiny shells at the bottom of the lake.
We then walked to our final cave, the wonderful Gruta Azul (Blue Cave). Minerals in the water gave it a striking deep blue colour, and a brief cameo from the sun illuminated it perfectly. An incredible spot, it mesmerized us for a while - though again maybe the photos don't quite do it justice!
After this we drove to our final destination, Pai Inacio, a small table-top mountain with breathtaking views over the Chapada. We drove most of the way up, hiking the last 15 minutes to the top. The view really was magnificent; we sat at the top waiting for the sun to go down, while it dawned on both of us that this would be our last real taste of the wilderness on our trip. The sunset was amazing, a perfect way to end our visit to Chapada
Diamantina.
We headed back to Lencois, had some tapiocas for dinner and had an early night. We had a great time in the national park; it was good to have one last adventure before we came to the final part of our trip. We hadn't done much hiking in Brazil, so with that and the opportunity to see some completely different scenery, we were glad we made the journey inland to Lencois.
We had a lot of travelling to do over the next few days, and hopefully some great scenery to enjoy in between...
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